Bo Li

Bo is a doc­toral stu­dent in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing  at Chongqing Uni­ver­sity.  His work is focused on the inte­gra­tion of renew­able energy and of elec­tric vehi­cle fleets into the Chi­nese power grid.

Guangzhi Yin

Guangzhi is a PhD stu­dent in Energy Sys­tems Analy­sis at Tsinghua Uni­ver­sity.  He has bachelor’s degrees in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing and in Man­age­ment from Tsinghua Uni­ver­sity.  He has been a vis­it­ing stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Bath and at the Israel Insti­tute of Technology.

His work is focused on the role of car­bon pric­ing and renew­able energy deploy­ment in China.

Guangzhi will be a vis­it­ing stu­dent at RAEL from Octo­ber 2019– July 2020.

 Cur­rent posi­tion:

Ph.D stu­dent in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing, Tsinghua University.

Xiaoli Zhang

Xiaoli is a PhD stu­dent in the School of Envi­ron­men­tal & Nat­ural Resources, Ren­min Uni­ver­sity of China

She has a range of research inter­ests, includ­ing the Low-​​carbon tran­si­tion path­way of China’s power sec­tor, the job cre­ation poten­tial of the new green energy econ­omy, and the role of energy stor­age in decar­boniza­tion in China and Europe.

She will be a vis­it­ing research stu­dent at RAEL from Octo­ber 2019 — August 2020.

Dongran Liu

Don­gran Liu is a doc­toral stu­dent in the School of Eco­nomic and Man­age­ment at North China Elec­tric Power Uni­ver­sity.  She has research inter­ests in energy mar­kets, opti­miza­tion and risk man­age­ment, and dis­trib­uted energy resource planning.

At RAEL she is work­ing on mod­el­ing the future of the Chi­nese elec­tric power sys­tem using SWITCH.  She is part of a part­ner­ship with Euro­pean energy stor­age asso­ci­a­tions to exam­ine the mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties and car­bon ben­e­fits of the instal­la­tion of a range of energy stor­age technologies.

She will be a vis­it­ing stu­dent in RAEL from Octo­ber 2019 — August 2020.

Cur­rent posi­tion:

PhD stu­dent, North China Elec­tric Power University

Natalie Fedorova

Natalie is an Energy Engi­neer­ing (https://engineeringscience.berke​ley​.edu/​e​n​e​rgy–engineering/​) major at UC Berke­ley. Her stud­ies focus on inte­grat­ing power sys­tem analy­sis with data sci­ence, opti­miz­ing resource use and study­ing the out­look of renew­able tech­nol­ogy adop­tion in var­i­ous parts of the world.

In RAEL, Natalie is cur­rently engaged in the SWITCH China project. She works on mod­el­ing grid expan­sion for China, look­ing at how decar­boniza­tion path­ways and elec­tric vehi­cle grid inte­gra­tion will affect the future energy mix. Her top­ics of inter­est include long-​​term power sys­tem plan­ning, appli­ca­tions of inter­na­tional energy pol­icy, pro­ject­ing energy demand, and stor­age tech­nol­ogy adoption.

Laos Energy Modeling and Policy Analysis (LEMPA) Project

Meet the Laos Energy Mod­el­ing and Pol­icy Analy­sis (Under­grad­u­ate!) Team:

The focus of this inter-​​disciplinary and inter-​​university research group is to develop sus­tain­able energy, water, and land-​​use sce­nar­ios for Laos, and to work with local stake-​​holders on the costs and ben­e­fits for com­mu­ni­ties, the nation, and the regional com­merce in energy, water, food, tim­ber and other commodities.

Aadi­tee Kudrimoti

Bio: Aadi­tee is a fourth-​​year at UC Berke­ley study­ing polit­i­cal sci­ence and pub­lic pol­icy with a con­cen­tra­tion in energy, devel­op­ment, and inter­na­tional rela­tions. Aadi­teeis orig­i­nally from Tuc­son, Ari­zona, where she began to develop an inter­est in inter­na­tional envi­ron­men­tal affairs. At UC Berke­ley, Aadi­teeis work­ing on projects in the polit­i­cal econ­omy of Chi­nese devel­op­ment finance, rural elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, and col­lec­tive action. Aadi­tee­has become espe­cially inter­ested in how the rise of renew­able tech­nol­ogy is influ­enc­ing energy diplo­macy around the world. She hopes to pur­sue a career in acad­e­mia and pub­lic pol­icy and work on gov­er­nance tools to build the bar­gain­ing capac­ity of LDCs against MNCs, for­eign state-​​owned enter­prises, etc. on the sub­ject of FDI and other types of invest­ment. She sees SWITCH-​​Laos as hav­ing the poten­tial to serve as a crit­i­cal tool in assist­ing the increase of the Lao people’s bar­gain­ing power over FDI in the energy sec­tor and thus their auton­omy in deter­min­ing their own eco­nomic devel­op­ment. Out­side school, Aaditee’s inter­ests include dance, food jour­nal­ism, and cooking.

Alex Lathem

Bio: Alex Lathem is a third-​​year under­grad­u­ate at Yale Uni­ver­sity. He is a physics major with sev­eral years of expe­ri­ence using pro­gram­ming lan­guages, includ­ing Python SQL, C, and Bash, to ana­lyze sci­en­tific data. Pre­vi­ous research projects Alex has worked on include astrom­e­try of near-​​Earth aster­oids and the cre­ation of a Hub­ble curve through the analy­sis of Type Ia super­novae. Alex spent the sum­mer of 2019 work­ing on the SWITCH model for China, and is very excited to apply the skills he learned there to a ver­sion for Laos. Out­side of research, Alex is also inter­ested in music, video game design, lin­guis­tics, and history.

Ash­ley Yip

Bio: Ash­ley is a second-​​year under­grad­u­ate study­ing envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence with an empha­sis in global pol­i­tics. She moved to New Mex­ico, where she devel­oped an inter­est in envi­ron­men­tal affairs. At UC Berke­ley, she is involved in a pre-​​law asso­ci­a­tion that helped her explore her inter­est in law and how she may inte­grate that into envi­ron­men­tal­ism. Off cam­pus, she is work­ing on a sex edu­ca­tion reform project in Sin­ga­pore with the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion. She is con­stantly explor­ing the inter­sec­tion between pol­icy, edu­ca­tion, and the envi­ron­ment. She hopes to return home to Sin­ga­pore and pur­sue a career in inter­na­tional envi­ron­men­tal pol­icy or law within South­east Asia. Ash­ley chose to work on SWITCH-​​Laos not only because green­ing ASEAN’s eco­nomic devel­op­ment is essen­tial to tack­ling cli­mate change, but also because she is famil­iar with the demo­graphic. She has done research in regards to both urban and rural agri­cul­ture in Asia and the US, and led research for envi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment in busi­ness oper­a­tions. Out­side of school, her inter­ests include climb­ing, hik­ing, piano, and camper vans.

Rachel Ng

Bio: Rachel is a second-​​year Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and Data Sci­ence major. A Singapore-​​native, Rachel describes that SWITCH-​​Laos extremely impor­tant to her because it is an impor­tant step towards the energy secu­rity of South­east Asia. She believes that the sus­tain­able elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of South­east Asia is key to regional grid sta­bil­ity and energy trade. She is pur­su­ing SWITCH-​​Laos as crit­i­cal in lead­ing the way towards sus­tain­able elec­tri­fi­ca­tion. Rachel is inter­ested in the inter­sec­tion­al­ity between cli­mate change and com­mu­nity, explor­ing how com­mu­nity based issues caused by cli­mate change can be alle­vi­ated through data. Fur­ther­more, Rachel is cur­rently con­cerned about equal access to edu­ca­tion and vol­un­teers weekly as a men­tor to ele­men­tary school stu­dents. In the future, she hopes to return to Sin­ga­pore and guide envi­ron­men­tal change through cre­at­ing an ecosys­tem of sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties and busi­nesses. Her hob­bies include dance, rock climb­ing and water sports.

Power system balancing for deep decarbonization of the electricity sector

We explore the oper­a­tions, bal­anc­ing require­ments, and costs of the West­ern Elec­tric­ity Coor­di­nat­ing Coun­cil power sys­tem under a strin­gent green­house gas emis­sion reduc­tion tar­get. We include sen­si­tiv­i­ties for tech­nol­ogy costs and avail­abil­ity, fuel prices and emis­sions, and demand pro­file. Meet­ing an emis­sions tar­get of 85% below 1990 lev­els is fea­si­ble across a range of assump­tions, but the cost of achiev­ing the goal and the tech­nol­ogy mix are uncer­tain. Deploy­ment of solar pho­to­voltaics is the main dri­ver of stor­age deploy­ment: the diur­nal peri­od­ic­ity of solar energy avail­abil­ity results in oppor­tu­ni­ties for daily arbi­trage that stor­age tech­nolo­gies with sev­eral hours of dura­tion are well suited to pro­vide. Wind out­put exhibits sea­sonal vari­a­tions and requires stor­age with a large energy sub­com­po­nent to avoid cur­tail­ment. The com­bi­na­tion of low-​​cost solar tech­nol­ogy and advanced bat­tery tech­nol­ogy can pro­vide sub­stan­tial sav­ings through 2050, greatly mit­i­gat­ing the cost of cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion. Pol­icy goals for stor­age deploy­ment should be based on the func­tion stor­age will play on the grid and there­fore incor­po­rate both the power rat­ing and dura­tion of the stor­age sys­tem. These goals should be set as part of over­all port­fo­lio devel­op­ment, as sys­tem flex­i­bil­ity needs will vary with the grid mix.

Sanchez, Daniel L.

Daniel L. Sanchez is an alumni of the Energy and Resources Group and the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab­o­ra­tory at the Uni­ver­sity of California-​​Berkeley. He is inter­ested in quan­ti­ta­tive analy­sis to inform pub­lic pol­icy, focus­ing on bioen­ergy and cli­mate pol­icy. His cur­rent research focused design, deploy­ment, and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of bioen­ergy with car­bon cap­ture and seques­tra­tion (BECCS) tech­nolo­gies. Daniel has pre­vi­ously held posi­tions with the Advanced Research Projects Agency-​​Energy (ARPA-​​E), Green for All, and the Cal­i­for­nia Pub­lic Util­i­ties Com­mis­sion. He holds an M.S. in Energy and Resources and a B.S.E. in Chem­i­cal and Bio­mol­e­c­u­lar Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of Pennsylvania.

Dan has been a post-​​doctoral fel­low at the Carnegie Insti­tu­tion at Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity, and is cur­rently a AAAS Fel­low in Wash­ing­ton, DC.  He is inter­ested in the deploy­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of tech­nolo­gies that sig­nif­i­cantly reduce energy-​​related CO2 emis­sions or remove CO2 from the atmos­phere. Daniel’s work and engage­ment spans the aca­d­e­mic, non­govern­men­tal, and gov­ern­men­tal sec­tors. He recently com­pleted a post­doc­toral research fel­low­ship with the Carnegie Insti­tu­tion for Sci­ence work­ing with Drs. Chris Field and Katharine Mach. Daniel has pre­vi­ously held posi­tions with the Advanced Research Projects Agency-​​Energy (ARPA-​​E), Green for All, and the Cal­i­for­nia Pub­lic Util­i­ties Commission.

He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from the Energy and Resources Group at the Uni­ver­sity of California-​​Berkeley, and a B.S.E. in Chem­i­cal and Bio­mol­e­c­u­lar Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of Pennsylvania.

Cur­ricu­lum Vitae

Pub­li­ca­tions

• Bio­mass enables the tran­si­tion to a carbon-​​negative power sys­tem across west­ern North America
• Bless­ing, with menace?
• Opti­miz­ing fer­men­ta­tion process miscanthus-​​to-​​ethanol biore­fin­ery scale under uncer­tain conditions
• Dairy Bio­gas in Cal­i­for­nia: Cost-​​Effective Development

Links

• Vox: Can we build power plants that actu­ally take car­bon diox­ide out of the air?
• Fron­tiers in Ecol­ogy and the Envi­ron­ment: Bio­mass could gen­er­ate carbon-​​negative power
• ERG Blog: Reset­ting the Con­ver­sa­tion on Biofuels

Hildalgo-​​Gonzalez, Patricia

Patri­cia grad­u­ated as an indus­trial and elec­tri­cal engi­neer in 2012 from Pon­ti­f­i­cia Uni­ver­si­dad Católica de Chile (PUC). Dur­ing her under­grad­u­ate stud­ies she worked as a Lin­ear Alge­bra teach­ing assis­tant for three years, per­formed research in Dr. Daniel Kammen’s Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab­o­ra­tory (RAEL) at UC Berke­ley work­ing on the SWITCH model for the US. She also worked (funded by CONICYT) on solar energy research at the Uni­ver­sity of Ari­zona (under­grad the­sis). Once she grad­u­ated she worked as a Lin­ear Alge­bra lec­turer at PUC. Later on, for over a year and a half she worked as a research assis­tant at UC Berke­ley and at the Nat­ural Resources Defense Coun­cil (per­form­ing SWITCH-​​Chile research). Her top­ics of inter­est are how to highly inte­grate renew­able energy in the grid, long-​​term power sys­tem plan­ning, sto­chas­tic load dis­patch mod­els, energy pol­icy, and energy economics.

Ponce de Leon, Diego

I am work­ing on my  MS/​PhD at the Energy and Resources Group (ERG). My research is in low-​​carbon (low-​​impact) energy sys­tems and eco­nomic devel­op­ment, mod­el­ing high renew­able energy future sce­nar­ios, and deploy­ing sMArt Grid (high-​​tech/​low-​​cost) pilots in the ris­ing south.  I’ve worked in Chi­a­pas (Mex­ico) devel­op­ing regional micro­cre­dit schemes and river sur­vey stud­ies,  designed and built ‘low-​​tech/​high– impact’ water dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tems for small com­mu­ni­ties in Uganda and Hon­duras, have used GIS mod­els and InVest (Inte­grated Val­u­a­tion of Envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices and Trade­offs) to study the hydrol­ogy of the Linthipe Basin (Malawi), and inves­ti­gated link­ages between hydro­log­i­cal vari­abil­ity, energy use, and agri­cul­ture in Pun­jab and Telan­gana (India).

My cur­rent work is in Nicaragua devel­op­ing and build­ing sce­nar­ios for the SWITCH model – opti­miz­ing the pen­e­tra­tion of renew­able energy into the country’s elec­tric power sys­tem, and deploy­ing the country’s first micro-​​scale demand response pro­gram (DR) through the use of ‘flex­i­ble energy toolkits’.

You can visit my web­site: dleonb​.com, LinkedIn, and Insta­gram accounts